Human Engineering and Climate Change

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us
today. There is ample evidence that climate change is likely to affect adversely many
aspects of life for all people around the world, and that existing solutions such as
geoengineering might be too risky and ordinary behavioral and market solutions might
not be sufficient to mitigate climate change.

In this paper, we consider a new kind of
solution to climate change, what we call human engineering, which involves biomedical
modifications of humans so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. We
argue that human engineering is potentially less risky than geoengineering and that it
could help behavioral and market solutions succeed in mitigating climate change. We
also consider some possible ethical concerns regarding human engineering such as its
safety, the implications of human engineering for our children and for the society, and we
argue that these concerns can be addressed. Our upshot is that human engineering
deserves further consideration in the debate about climate change.